University of Michigan defends spending millions on diversity plan

University of Michigan vice provost for equity, inclusion and academic affairs Robert Sellers greets those in attendance at Mark Schlissel's annual Leadership Breakfast at the Michigan Union on Wednesday, October 5, 2016. Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News

ANN ARBOR, MI - Rob Sellers has heard the criticisms and he's seen the figures thrown around social media.

The University of Michigan is paying $10.6 million annually in salary and benefits to employ 82 diversity officers, including 76 on its Ann Arbor campus.

For that amount of money, more than 700 students could receive full in-state tuition at a time when the cost of college continues to rise, UM-Flint Professor of Finance and Business Economics Mark J. Perry has argued.

Perry has been a financial watchdog of sorts regarding UM's DEI staffing, highlighting his research on his personal website for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative public policy think tank. He’s also successfully internally challenged UM faculty awards specified for minorities and women with Title IX complaint threats.

"... Once you move away from the academy/higher education, with its uniform leftist, progressive, liberal echo chamber, I think you find that mainstream Americans object to the diversity efforts that contribute to higher tuition and rising student loan debt that are contributing to the unsustainable 'higher education bubble,'" Perry said.

He argues "administrative bloat" is one of his chief concerns in highlighting UM's spending on diversity officers, presenting graphs showing dramatic increases in the number of employees with diversity titles. There were none on the Ann Arbor campus until 2003. The following year there were 15, increasing to 76 this fall.

The numbers are misleading and don’t take into account those employees have duties that go well beyond recruiting traditionally under-represented minorities, said Sellers, the university's first chief diversity officer.

That includes implementing teaching strategies that make the classroom experience better for all students.

"For example, in certain gateway courses in the sciences, if there is a lab that is taught in one particular way where competition is emphasized, you find significant differences in performance by gender - men do much better in those spaces," Sellers said.

"On the flip side, if the exact same material is taught in a way that doesn't emphasize competition, but emphasizes cooperation and collaboration, those gender and group differences go away. It's not that the men do (worse), it's that everyone does better."

It all begs the question: How does the UM campus community measure progress when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion since the university launched a five-year strategic plan in 2016?

The Ann Arbor News asked administrators, faculty, staff and students how they think UM is doing.

The University of Michigan Has At Least 82 Full-Time Diversity Officers at a Total Annual Payroll Cost of $10.6M. That Would Support Full In-State Tuition for 708 Students. pic.twitter.com/hdvgCMaSAc

Research provided by UM-Flint economics professor Mark J. Perry shows the rise in the number of UM "diversity officers" by title, according to salary reports. UM says those employees perform a number of other different functions outside of their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Around 80 percent of those with "diversity officer" titles existed before UM launched its strategic plan in October 2016, announcing an $85 million investment in new resources designed to help transform the campus culture.of the plan in 2016.

That means the remaining new roles created since then account for around $2.1 million of that total. Salaries count for around $8 million of that total, while the rest accounts for employee benefits.

"Some of these staff do work that is required by federal law, such as the professionals in our Office for Institutional Equity, who conduct investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct, age discrimination and gender bias, and protect civil rights," Schlissel wrote.

Salaries for those with diversity in their title range from Sellers, who earns $407,653 a year, to administrative assistants earning $42,000 a year.

It's hard to gauge exactly how much time each of the employees with diversity titles devote to DEI-related work, UM Public Affairs Representative Lauren Love said. Those decisions are often left up to each of the plan's 49 units.

Fiona Lee, associate dean of DEI and Professional Development in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, sees DEI initiatives having an impact on students in the College of LSA. Photo provided | University of Michigan

DEI in action

In her 23 years as a UM faculty member, Fiona Lee said one of the best parts is bringing together people with completely different life experiences.

Lee's work as an associate dean of DEI and Professional Development in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts has helped fulfill the needs of students who are financially disadvantaged.

"Our DEI strategic plan is focused on making sure all students, regardless of social identity, have the same opportunities to voice their views, share their experiences, participate in all the activities provided at UM, and access resources to help them succeed," Lee said.

DEI work in the college has included starting a program to provide new laptops to students whose family income is less than $65,000, which has helped 1,302 students. The college also started a program to fund passport applications for first-year, Pell grant-eligible students, to help fund their global study aspirations.

DEI efforts also have focused on inclusive teaching, Lee said, by creating dozens of workshops to help its 3,000 faculty and graduate student instructors.

This has been supported by a website to showcase effective inclusive teaching methods that have resonated with students and provided numerous grants to support faculty who want to develop new teaching practices.

The college also started a new Inclusive Campus Corps program, which is available to the more than 1,000 student workers and offers training on leadership, communication skills, conflict management, organizational change and other professional skills, Lee said.

The college continues to work on getting faculty, staff and its 19,673 students - by far the largest college at UM - engaged in and passionate about its DEI goals, Lee said.

"We need to do a better job of communicating the message that DEI is a priority for everyone, not just a few," Lee said.

Surveys say ...

Jack Zellweger | The Ann Arbor News

Surveys say ...

One of the first big pieces of UM's DEI plan was to determine how faculty, staff and students experienced the campus and whether they found it welcoming to all.

Surveys made up of random samples of students, staff and faculty showed that 62 percent of undergraduate underrepresented minority students and 55 percent underrepresented minority faculty said they are satisfied with the campus climate, compared with 72 percent of the overall UM community.

"The campus was experienced very differently, depending on one's social identity, which wasn't a particular surprise," Sellers said.

First-generation students, on the other hand, were 127 percent more likely than other students to report feeling neutral, unsatisfied, or very unsatisfied with the campus climate.